Birthdays, Sushi, Family and Friends

I had every intention of updating yesterday, but we got home and I was so exhausted. All I wanted to do was lay down! I couldn't believe how tired I was. So, here is what we have been up to the last couple of days!

Friday was Jason's birthday. After the kids soccer practice, we went to dinner with his family! With his family, for all birthdays we go out for sushi. I don't eat much sushi, but I love tempura. We always go to the same restaurant. They have great sushi, with large cuts of fish. The older girls both tried sashimi, which for anyone that might not know (I didn't), sashimi is just the fish. No rice. Jayden loved crab. Victoria loved all of it! She tried, salmon, yellowtail, tuna (I think), and crab. She enjoyed every last bit of it! This really impressed Jason's dad! He didn't think she'd like it at all! She's far and away my best eater. I used to say that she had never met a food she didn't like - which isn't totally true because she doesn't like Mac & Cheese!!! What??? Every kid likes mac & cheese! Not this one! She'll eat sushi, but not mac & cheese! Go figure! We all enjoyed our dinner, and since we go to this restaurant so often, we have gotten to know the owners, and she sent out a complimentary bottle of Saki! Since Jason & his dad don't drink, his mom and I had to drink it ourselves (I'm really not complaining)! It was so good! I had never had cold saki before, and it was fantastic! Also, Jason's youngest brother was with us, which was great, because he just got home from Norway last Sunday, and he's leaving again on Wednesday because... He got a contract to play soccer with a professional soccer club out there! We are all so proud of him and excited for him! I think he's pretty excited too!

Yesterday my dad was playing tennis so the kids and I went out and met my mom at the park, and while my dad was playing, we took the kids to the playground and my mom started teaching me how to knit! She was busy taking pictures of the kids (hopefully she'll send me some so I can share them... hint hint), so we didn't get as much time to practice, and I forgot to get the yarn and knitting needles from her so I could take them home and practice! After my dad was done playing tennis we packed up the kids, and went to my brother and sister in laws house. My mom's close friend from childhood, whom we haven't seen in about 12 years, came over and surprised her! It was so great to see her, and see how happy my mom was to catch up with her friend! They have both been on facebook, and pinterest, so they haven't been totally out of touch, but it's just different to get to see someone in person! We also got to meet her husband and furbabies! We loved them all! 

Today we are taking the kids to the park so Micah can play soccer with a couple of his friends, and then after the kids can go play at the playground! Hopefully I will be able to update tonight with a new recipe! We'll see!

Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili

As promised, I am going to give you the recipe to the very yummy dinner we had last night. Victoria tells me I don't make it enough! My favorite website right now to find recipes on is Skinnytaste. She has the greatest recipes and they are all low fat! She also includes the Weight Watchers points (old and new system), and calories. The best thing is that her recipes are all AMAZING!! So this is where I got this recipe. I can't take credit for it, but it's so good I have to share! Jason and I both agree that we like this better than regular chili with ground beef! I apologize for the picture, I don't have the greatest camera (great for a 5 year old point and shoot), but I know there are shadows on it. When I tried using my flash it really washed it out so you just weren't able to see the deliciousness of this dish!!

Is your mouth watering yet??? Don't you want to make this RIGHT NOW??? All of the kids LOVE this and last night they ALL finished their dinner! If you know my kids, that is a feat in itself! Micah is a very picky eater, so finding something he really likes is hard! He has been getting better lately though. I'm cooking more, and it seems like he's finding he likes more! So anyway, here is the recipe loosely adapted from Skinnytaste...

Ingredients:

1 onion, chopped
1 16 oz can black beans (I haven't been able to find 16 oz here, so I use 15 oz... close enough)
1 16 oz can kidney beans
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
10 oz package frozen corn kernels (I usually get a larger bag because I use so much, so I put in about a cup and a half)
2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes w/chilies
1 packet taco seasoning (this is equal to 1/4 C or 4 TBSP )
1 TBSP cumin
1 TBSP chili powder
24 oz (3-4) boneless skinless chicken breast (I always just throw mine in frozen)

Directions:

Combine beans, onion, corn, tomato sauce, cumin, chili powder, and taco seasoning in a slow cooker. Place chicken on top and cover. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Half hour before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir in. Top with cheese, sour cream, avocado, or any of your favorite toppings for chili! Scarf it down!

Try it out and let me know what you think! I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

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Long day

Today has felt like a very long day. When I woke up this morning to get V up for school, I felt like I just hadn't gotten enough sleep! I left the little ones and Jason home sleeping while I took her to school and when I got home I crawled back into bed hoping to get maybe another hour of sleep before B woke up , but of course she decided to get up about 10 mins later. So I dragged my tired butt out of bed and put dinner in the crock pot. I had every intention of posting the recipe here tonight, but I am so tired it's going to have to wait until tomorrow. Because my parents are gone for about 14 hours every day my mom doesn't have time to cook when she gets home and they were getting tired of eating out every night so I make about four meals a week for my parents so everything I make, I make double of. I made 3 meals today. I left the house only to drop V off at school and pick her up and then to drop my parents food off to my mom. I have been on my feet all day, and I still have a sink full of dishes to do! Luckily J has soccer practice tomorrow night instead of tonight so I didn't have to go to that today! The kids were pretty well behaved until this evening. Then it was like they just lost their minds! It's days like this that make me love bedtime! I have one meal to make tomorrow and it's another crock pot one, so about 10 minutes of prep time and then it cooks all day! I live crock pot recipes! I have two crock pots and neither are very large, so someday I will get a big one! It will make my life so much easier! M goes to pre school tomorrow so after we drop him off I'll come home and put dinner on and then hopefully get some much needed cleaning done! Soccer practice tomorrow night and I will also get a recipe posted tomorrow too! Dinner was so yummy! I am still stuffed right now, and the kids loved it too! They ALL finished their dinner which, if you know M, you know what a huge compliment that is! He is just such a picky eater! I think that's it for now. I need to finish filling out the pre school registration for B for next year! I can't believe my baby is going to be starting preschool! She was just born last week! At least that's what it feels like! At that I will say good night! Watch for my yummy recipe tomorrow!!

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I'm Baaaaaaaack!!!

Ok, so it's been a long, LONG time since I have blogged! There's really no excuse! I have decided that I am going to put more into blogging, because for me it's a really great way for me to get thoughts out! I can't guarantee that this blog is going to follow any specific format, because frankly, for the last few months that I have been wanting to get to blogging, I have been trying to decide what to blog about. I thought about blogging about hairstyles. There are several wonderful hairstyle blogs that I follow, and in all honesty, I don't think you'd get any original ideas from me, since I take them from other sites, and that just didn't seem fair to me. I thought about blogging about food! Yummy!!! I LOVE food! I just don't take clear enough pictures, nor do I remember to take pictures as I go! I have thought about just blogging with random things throughout my life, however, I'm pretty boring! So basically what I decided is that I will just.... wait for it... blog about EVERYTHING!!! Some days it will be a recipe, some days maybe a cute hairstyle I did on my girls (with a link to where I found it of course)! Some days maybe just some helpful tips that I've found somewhere (ie Pinterest... oh yes, I am addicted! Thank you Mom!) Whatever tickles my fancy (yes I just said that) at the time! So for now, here is an update on us!

The kids are getting big! I can't believe it! Some days it seems like we wake up in the morning, and they are bigger!!! V is 10 now! She's turning into such a lovely young woman. I'm waiting for the day that I wake up and she's taller than me! And I'm 5'10"!!! It will happen though! I'm sure of it! J is 6 and she is such a little spitfire! She makes me laugh! We are working with her on paying attention to how she says things, and how those things can make other people feel. Right now she has no filter! M is 4 and getting ready to start Kindergarten! I can't believe he's that old already! He was just a baby! He is such a sweetheart! So loving and snuggly! He LOVES soccer! He is so his Daddy's little boy! They love to sit and watch soccer together (especially Manchester United)! He cries if they lose, or if they get scored on (I took some video of his reactions yesterday during their game, so I'll have to upload those later)! He himself is a little soccer stud too! He calls himself "Chicharito"! So cute! B is... well... I'm just not sure there are words! She is almost 3. She is stubborn, and funny, and silly, and sweet, and a ball of energy! She loves to pick on the other kids (particularly M), and has to have whatever they are playing with at the time! She thinks she can do everything all the other kids can do, and gets upset if she can't! For the first time in 4 1/2 years, I have no children in diapers! What a relief! It's so nice to not have to always be carrying around diapers, and changing them! It's bittersweet for me, because on one hand, I don't have to change diapers anymore, but on the other hand, my babies are all growing up!!!

I am also part of a community called BzzAgent. This company allows me to try out products and review them! I really enjoy this. They send out full size products for you to try and report back so that the companies get honest opinions on what they can do better! Or just hear back that their products are great! Right now I am part of a Bzz Campaign for Health-Full bread! I got my coupon for my free loaf of bread in the mail this weekend, and I can't wait to go to the store and try it because it really looks yummy!!! Once I try it out, I will let you know how it is!

Well I think that's it for the updates for now, and I'm going to try to be more consistent with blogging! Let's see how it goes! I have a lot to learn! Now to get some stuff done around here (hopefully)!!!

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January 31 2010

Last night we took the kids all out to my parents house, where the association there was having a Karaoke night. They do this once a month and Victoria loves it! This is the first time that Jason and Jayden joined us. To Jason's and my surprise, Jayden said she wanted to sing too! So she and Victoria sang "Best of Both worlds" by Hannah Montana! It was so cute! I tried to video it, but realized that I left my memory card from my camera in my computer! Luckily my camera has a little bit of memory built in so I was able to get a little bit. Here's what I got:




I've been "cyber-stalking" these hair blogs online lately, and I'm really enjoying the hairstyles I'm finding! Jayden is so good about letting me do her hair! Victoria likes me doing her hair too, but she's not as good about getting it done! But it's been cute to do and I'm enjoying it! Hopefully I'll be able to do more! I have to figure out how to link to the blogs, but when I do, rest assured I will do so! Here's how I did the girls hair on Saturday night (I only got a picture of the back of Jayden's but Victoria's is the same. They always want their hair the same! They are so funny!

This is another style I did. I kind of came up with this on my own. I loved the twists and decided to try them. There's a great tutorial video at princesshairstyles.com and then I did a flip ponytail in the back. I think it would've been cuter if I had the time to straighten the pony, but I didn't, so this is what you get. I still liked it though!


Because I was taking pictures of Jayden's hair, Micah thought I needed pictures of his hair too! So here's his hair! I can't really take credit for it though! lol


And here's a style I tried of Victoria's hair a couple days before. I still need to work on it a bit, and this was taken after school, and the flash was on, but you get the idea. Please don't mind the mess around her, Micah was feeling the need to take EVERYTHING out that day! 2 year olds!



As far as Bella, she now has 2 teeth! The first one broke through last week, and the second is coming through as I type this! Micah has more words every day and just has the cutest little personality! The more he talks the more it comes out! It's so much fun! Well I think that's it for now! I will post again soon!

A New Year

I'm finding it hard to believe that it's 2010 already! I remember being a child and figuring out how old we (my brother & sister and I) would be in the year 2000 & here we are 10 years later! Thinking about it on New Years day, I realized that I have now lived in 5 different decades!!! Could that be possible? Yep it sure is! That makes me feel old... and sound a whole lot older than I actually am! Weren't we supposed to have flying cars and robots doing all our cleaning and dress in aluminum foil and things like that? Of course who would have guessed 30 years ago that most everyone would be walking around with a small phone that you could take with you? However now that almost everyone has one, it's hard to remember what like was life with out them, and if we don't have it on us for any reason we feel lost!

Now that we have entered a new year and a new decade, I look at my children and wonder what things are going to be like for them in 30 years! It's hard to imagine!

Victoria is now 8 (I can hardly believe it), but she is already starting to act like a teenager (God help me)! She is so smart, gets great grades, and her teacher loves having her in class. She is such an amazing child! She has told me that she wants to play soccer again this year, after taking 2 seasons off and has even been going with Jason and doing some training with him! She definitely has some potential as a goalkeeper and her height will be great for that! She still loves to sing and where my parents live they have a monthly karaoke night and she LOVES to sing there! She amazes me every single day!

Micah is 2 1/2 and all boy! He is funny beyond belief and so compassionate! When he's upset he tells you "I sad" and puts his head down and looks dejected! If he's crying he also lets you know that by telling you... "I cry"! He loves all of his sisters! He loves to look at pictures and tell you who everyone is, and when asked who he is, rather than say "Micah" he says "Mine"! I think he thinks that's his name! For Christmas we all got passes to Disneyland so we have taken him a few times and he loves it! There's nothing like taking a 2 year old to Disneyland! It's like seeing the park for the first time!

Allurabella is 9 months old already! I can't believe where the time has gone! She says a few things, "Ma-ma", and "Hi", but "Da-da" is far and away her favorite word! Two nights ago she took her first steps. I missed them, she walked to Jason. Yesterday I got to see her walk 4 steps - again to Jason! She is quickly becoming a Daddy's girl, and Jason is loving every minute of it!

I can't believe how quickly all of my kids are growing! It makes me happy and sad at the same time, but they are all healthy and happy and I never knew that 3 small people could make me so happy that I feel like my heart will explode! I can't wait to see what they will do next!

Allurabella Diane & updates on the kiddos!

I haven't updated this at all, but I'm going to try to be better about it.

On March 20, 2009 at 10:34, Jason & I welcomed our beautiful baby girl Allurabella Diane into the world. She is absolutely perfect. She weighed 7lbs, 2 ozs, and was 19 1/2 inches long. We came up with her name because we just couldn't agree on one. Jason has always wanted to name his daughter Allura, because he loved that name, but I didn't like it alone. There were a few names that I liked, and Isabella was one of them, and I love Bella as a nickname. Since we couldn't agree, we decided to put the names together. Jason mostly calls her Allura, and I go back and forth. I call her Bella mostly, but sometimes Allura, sometimes All, Bells, there are a lot of nicknames. She's so beautiful that her name totally fits her! She's already smiling, and I can just hold her and smile at her and talk to her and she just smiles these big smiles at me! I haven't caught it on the camera yet, but I will! I just can't get enough of her!

Today I took her to the Dr, for her well baby check up. She is now 9lbs 9ozs and 22 1/2 inches long. That puts her in the 90th percentile for her weight, and the 75th for her height! She's already such a big girl!

Micah has been such a good big brother! He loves to kiss her and tries to hold her! He's starting to talk so much more! He knows several signs: milk, more, please, thank you, all done, and he tries to do I love you. Sometimes he actually tries to say the words too. A couple weeks ago I shaved Jason's head for him and we decided to shave Micah's too! It looks so incredibly cute! He loves to play soccer. He's going to be so good at it. He already has a good grasp on what he's supposed to do, and loves to have a ball around as much as possible. When he's not playing with a ball, he's got his cars! Everything is a road! He will be 2 years old next month! I can't believe how fast time goes by! He's such a little lover too! He's very attached to both his Daddy and me!

Victoria is 7 years old and in the 1st grade. She just started reading the first Harry Potter book! She is just so smart! Last month she was student of the month! I'm so proud of her. She's getting so tall, I can't even keep up with her growth! She's looking more and more like me all the time too! My parents live in a new community that has a "Lodge" and they do Karaoke once a month. Victoria has decided that she LOVES it! The first time we went she and my sister sang "Don't go Breaking my Heart". She was such a hit! The last two times she's sang "Dancing Queen"! It's amazing to watch all the people there listen to her sing. They just love her! I'm so proud of her!

My kids amaze me everyday! Keep coming back to see what amazing things they do next!